The Link Read Online Free Page A

reason, I felt strangely calm, relieved actually. Maybe because he was finally telling me what I had seen him struggling with for a while now.
     
    He went on, “My kind have been around for many, many centuries. But we’re very different than how we’re portrayed in books and movies. Our population is small, there are very few of us. We were created and we exist to keep good people safe, to keep evil from taking over. We seek out evil. When we find it, we destroy it.” I gulped when he said this, I was fairly certain I knew what he meant. “Our numbers are controlled and kept low for one reason - so that humans don’t know we exist. The Elders control us. They are very old, they are very strong and they keep us from knowing too much about ourselves and how we ’ re created. They watch and look for those who are strong and good, and they change them in a secret process at their hidden location. After a new vampire is created - he or she must stay at their Fortress, where they are taught the reason they were created, taught our rules for existence and taught to control themselves. If a vampire breaks any of the rules or reveals any secrets, The Elders elite guards, the Enforcers, are sent to bring them back to face punishment.” His eyes flicked to the door when he said this.
     
    I looked at the door too, puzzled, then gasped and said, “And you’re breaking rules by telling me this and the Enforcers are coming for you?”
     
    “ They will be,” he nodded.
     
    “ For me?” I whispered.
     
    “ No,” he said, “for me, but you could be … hurt … if you are with me.”
     
    “ But how will they know you’ve told me?” I asked.
     
    “ They won’t, exactly , ” he said . “Vampires can link minds to communicate. One of the Elders’ rules is to keep our minds open to them at all times. Whenever they want, they’re supposed to be able to know what I’m doing. But I’ve closed my mind to them. They can’t see me anymore. Whenever a vampire does that, they send out the Enforcers to find out why.”
     
    He suddenly had a look of pain on his face that made me reach for him; I took his chin in my hand and asked, “What is it, what’s wrong?”
     
    “ I’m so angry at myself for being so weak,” he said. “I’m putting you in so much danger here. I never should have spoken to you, I should have stayed away.”
     
    “ No, Matthew, you’re wrong,” I said. “I’m so glad you’re here, in my life,” I smiled. “Please tell me more.”
     
    He smiled, shook his head, muttered something about “no resistance” under his breath and then continued. “I don ’ t know why the link changed for me, why I was able to be near you, to come to you … to fall in love with you,” he said softly.
     
    “ The link?” I asked, still digesting the rest of what he had said. Did he really just say he was in love with me? Could my heart possibly beat any faster?
     
    He smiled and went on . “Your love, your compassion, is so much that it overflows out of you and into me. It wraps around me and makes me see possibilities, makes me see hope, makes me feel whole. I believe this and the great sadness you ’ ve suffered somehow changed the link in a way that no one has ever seen. Many vampires link with humans. We do lead a fairly solitary, lonely existence, so it’s a natural occurrence for us. We see a human that we are inextricably pulled towards, that we have an undeniable need to protect and we link to them. But the Elders also made it so the links, when they do form, also keep us at a distance, it prevents us from getting too close. We actually feel pain if we get too close. A link has never, until now, until you, allowed a vampire to be to near the one they protect. The way it had always happened when we link is, we watch over the one we ’ ve joined with, keeping them safe, but we have to allow their lives to take a natural course. They live, go to school, fall in love, get married, have